20 JANUARY 1912, Page 1

The Times correspondent goes on to describe what the pro-

cedure is likely to be :—" By an understanding between the two parties it is now being arranged that there shall be two edicts. In the first, which will be issued apparently without his knowledge, Yuan Shih-kai will be given full powers to establish Republican government in China. Yuan Shih-kai will accept, whereupon the conference of delegates from the seventeen provinces now assembled at Nanking will elect him President, the present Provisional President, Sun Yati sen, retiring in his favour. Yuan Shih-kai will then accept the Presidency, and thereupon the Throne, in a second edict, will abdicate."